We live in a ‘New’ Nepal where we’re slowly turning our backs on the rule of law and heading to the rule of the jungle. Well, our rebels have left the jungle and are now major power players.  A decade of tasting ‘power’ has turned our rebels into the same old corrupt politicians they vowed to take action against during their ‘jungle fever’ days. Now, who really wants to go back to the jungle?

But it seems that our police wallahs really do want to go back to the jungle instead. And that’s what happened a few days ago when two kidnappers were shot to death by our men in blue! Yes, in this land of ours, you don’t need to be arrested and taken to the court. Our policewallahs can decide on the spot what to do with you. They don’t need to be afraid of the courts, the media or the general public. It seems that in this land where we don’t have a death penalty, our police wallahs can just take out their guns and fire a dozen times and end your life without being proven guilty by the courts.

Yes, those two young men were wrong but they should have faced the law instead of facing a gun. Some may feel that justice has been served and the law of retaliation is the way to go. But we have to be careful because one day, they will also come for us, the ordinary law-abiding, hardworking citizens who may somehow anger one of our police wallahs and then we might be taken to the jungle as well.

Our police wallahs think that ‘encounter’ is the way to go when it comes to lawbreakers. Yes, a lot of us did applaud when our mundrey dons were shot to death a few years ago. But in a rule of law, even mundrey dons, and corrupt politicians like common citizens are all subject to the law. And it doesn’t matter if you are a chor, a thulo manchey or a common citizen, if you break the law then you must face the music; if not, you should not be harassed or shot to death. Even if you break the law, the men in blue do not have the right to hand out a death sentence.

And in this age of social media and Nepalis having access to bideshi crime shows on cable TV, our police wallahs can no longer fool us with their silly excuses. Our brave cops are great sharp shooters and know how to not get in the harm’s way when it comes to fighting back our criminals. In Nepal, it’s always the criminals who fire first and our cops then have to fire back in self-defense and our criminals are then killed and that’s about it.

When it comes to the case of dons like Chari and Ghaite, we all know that without political blessings, our cops cannot go after the criminals. It’s our politicians who used the muscles of those dons and even made money off them and when they became too big for their boots, they were killed with the help of our security personnel. But the recent case of two painters turned kidnappers is different. Our prayers are with the family of the eleven-year old victim but the two young men should have been taken to jail and Nepal Police would have at least had the chance to study these two men and come up with a report on why the two broke the law in hopes of making a quick buck. Nepal Police could use the information to create public awareness campaigns to help people to not share their financial matters to others and even teach our kids some sort of skills which will come in handy when facing such situations.

Our government tells us that it will investigate the so-called fake encounter by our Nepal Police. Our Home Minister will create a taskforce and will finally punish the trigger happy-cops just like he has managed to punish the shady contractors. A child is dead because two young men thought they could make quick cash by asking for ransom. Our police wallahs failed to do their job of going after the kidnappers even though two different teams from different departments had mobilised hundreds of cops. Yes, not all operations are successful but our police wallahs do their job most of the time with limited resources and manpower. But who gives our cops the right to enforce capital punishment in this land when our constitution strictly prohibits making laws that provides for capital punishment? But who really cares about our constitution anyway?

After all, we have a great government that makes mockery of our justice system now and then. A person convicted of murder by the court is set free thanks to presidential pardon but two men who were yet to face the court are shot to death.  The job of Nepal Police is to arrest criminals not execute them. Dear IGP Saheb, when will we not be afraid of Nepal Police or should we just run for our lives when we see our men and women in blue walking down the street?

Guffadi is a grumpy old man who blogs at guffadi.blogspot.com.